Georgian villa on Monkstown Crescent has scope to extend into rear garden

To say 14 Monkstown Crescent, a late Georgian villa, has a village on its doorstep is a bit of an understatement. You could stand in the front garden while pruning the topiary and shout your coffee order over to the Avoca cafe across the road.

Over the past decade, the village which still retains one of Ireland’s oldest original shopfronts, Lane McCormack’s pharmacy, has seen the arrival of an abundance of small independent shops selling everything from flower pots to quality wines. The village even has an amateur dramatics society, whose recent performance of Factory Girls sold out every night at the local Knox Hall.

The house was purchased in 2012 by corporate financier Jonathan Dalton for €770,000, who then began upgrading the property with the help of architect Tim Lavin. The front steps which sagged in the centre were fixed and reinforced, sash windows were restored and French drains installed in the front garden.

Dalton had intended, as neighbours have done, to extend the property and give downstairs a complete overhaul. But the pitter patter of tiny feet intervened, and with four small children in 3½ years, the requirements are now for a larger property. “I love the house, but also know that to try and accommodate five bedrooms, which we now need, was never going to work,” says Dalton.

Of typical Georgian layout, there are two reception rooms at hall level - the drawing room runs the full width of the house centred off an original fireplace. Of interest is the elaborate ceiling rose. Opposite lies a smaller reception room which is used as a bedroom by the family twins, and to the rear is the kitchen. A further four rooms are at garden level.

Living room

Old houses tend to have curiosities, it is just a matter of looking, and here the conversation piece is a tiny framed piece of plaster which hangs on a wall.

The fragment fell out when the house was having recent conservation work. You can see the horsehair meshed into the original plasterwork – dating from when the house was built in 1836 – but there is also a crumpled piece of the Irish Times stuffed into plaster work dating from 1980, presumably when further works were being carried out.

Rear garden

What is peculiar is the only legible bit of the newspaper stuffed into this plasterwork from 40-years ago is an advertisement for 2 The Palms, Roebuck Road, the very house where Dalton grew up. What are the odds in a county with over a million homes?

What will interest buyers here besides the village location and the 15-minute Dart trip into the city, is the extent of the rear garden (23m) and the potential to extend. Neighbours on either side have added significant extensions to their homes – which is clear from the aerial photograph, so there is precedent to add a large extension.

The property also has off-street parking to the rear, which is essential as parking along the front is busy with locals supporting their village shops.